THE BEST SCHOOL OF ALL 31 For though the dust that's part of us To dust again be gone, Yet here shall beat the heart of us The School we handed on! We'll honour yet the School we knew. The best School of all: We'll honour yet the rule we knew, Till the last bell call. For, working days or holidays, They were great days and jolly days EPISTLE TO COLONEL FRANCIS EDWARD YOUNGHUSBAND ACROSS the Western World, the Arabian Sea, The Hundred Kingdoms and the Rivers Three, Beyond the rampart of Himálayan snows, And up the road that only Rumour knows, Unchecked, old friend, from Devon to Thibet, Friendship and Memory dog your footsteps yet. Let not the scornful ask me what avails This drains a garden and a homely field Which scarce at times a living current yield; The other from the high lands of his birth Plunges through rocks and spurns the pastoral earth, Then, settling silent to his deeper course, Draws in his fellows to augment his force, Becomes a name, and broadening as he goes, Gives power and purity where'er he flows, Till, great enough for any commerce grown, He links all nations while he serves his own. Soldier, explorer, statesman, what in truth Have you in common with homekeeping youth? 'Youth," comes your answer like an echo faint; 5 And youth it was that made us first acquaint. Do you remember when the Downs were white With the March dust from highways glaring bright, How you and I, like yachts that toss the foam, From Penpole Fields came stride and stride for home? One grimly leading, one intent to pass, Mile after mile we measured road and grass, Twin silent shadows, till the hour was done, The shadows parted, and the stouter won. Since then I know one thing beyond appeal— How runs from stem to stern a trim-built keel. Another day-but that's not mine to tell, The man in front does not observe so well; Though, spite of all these five-and-twenty years, As clear as life our schoolday scene appears. The guarded course, the barriers and the rope; The runners, stripped of all but shivering hope; The starter's good grey head; the sudden hush; The stern white line; the half-unconscious rush; The deadly bend, the pivot of our fate; The rope again; the long green level straight; The lane of heads, the cheering halfunheard, The dying spurt, the tape, the judge's word. |